De Blasio Hits Albany With Rally for Tax on NYC Wealthy

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio
arrived in Albany today with about 1,000 supporters of his plan
to tax the rich to pay for universal pre-kindergarten, the top
initiative of his administration.

It’s the fourth time de Blasio has made the 154-mile (247-kilometer) trip to the state capital since assuming office Jan.
1. He needs to persuade state lawmakers and Governor Andrew Cuomo to let him tax the wealthy for pre-K and after-school
programs for middle schoolers. The fight for the tax may be in
its final weeks, as some lawmakers backing the measure seek to
include it in the state budget that takes effect April 1.

“We need one more push to get there,” de Blasio told
supporters at the Washington Avenue Armory, whose 3,600 seats
were about one-third filled. “We have built a movement over the
last few months, and now it’s time for it to crescendo.”

While de Blasio, 52, was pushing for his program, Cuomo was
addressing a crowd of about 10,000 rallying at the steps of
Capitol in support of charter schools. Last week, the mayor
rejected three charter schools’ applications to use space inside
New York public school buildings rent-free, effectively blocking
their creation and reversing a decision by his predecessor,
former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Sticking Point

De Blasio has said charter schools, which are publicly
funded and privately operated, had been singled out for
preferential treatment by the Bloomberg administration, even
though they serve only 5 percent of the city’s students. The
former mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News
parent Bloomberg LP.

In November, de Blasio won election by the largest
percentage-point margin of any non-incumbent in city history,
becoming the first Democrat to run City Hall in two decades.

The sticking point on pre-K is a competing plan from Cuomo,
a fellow Democrat, that’s backed by state Senate Republican
leader Dean Skelos. They want a statewide pre-school program
paid for out of the New York budget without raising taxes. Cuomo
has said de Blasio’s idea would be unfair because other
municipalities don’t have millionaires to tap. Skelos has said
he’ll block the proposal from coming to a vote.

De Blasio is scheduled to meet with Cuomo and Skelos today.
Yesterday, he released a 15-page report on the $190 million
after-hours program, which will provide academic help and
sports, art and music education to 119,000 of the city’s 224,000
middle-school students, up from about 56,000 served now.

Making Case

“We’re making the case all the time and we’re gaining a
lot of support, and that’s what wins the day in these things,”
de Blasio said yesterday at a City Hall news briefing. “It’s
not where you start. It’s where you finish.”

The mayor’s tax would generate $530 million annually over
five years by raising taxes on income above $500,000 a year to
4.4 percent from almost 3.9 percent. For the 27,300 taxpayers
earning $500,000 to $1 million, the average increase would be
$973 a year, according to the Independent Budget Office, a
municipal agency.

De Blasio will also meet with Sheldon Silver, the Manhattan
Democrat who leads the Assembly. Silver joined de Blasio at the
rally, where he spoke for about five minutes without mentioning
the tax or the need for the wealthy to pitch in. Instead, Silver
said funding for a pre-K program needs to be “significant,
recurring and sustainable” and available statewide.

“What I want, and my Assembly colleagues want, is for
every one of New York state’s children to always have the
opportunity to succeed,” Silver said. “I don’t care who takes
credit when we win this fight.”

Cuomo has said he’ll fully fund de Blasio’s pre-K program -
- at any cost. The more than $2.2 billion Cuomo proposed in his
January budget to spend statewide over five years for early
chidlhood education and after school programs was just a
starting point, he has said.